


pour us a road (we'll both drink and drive)

by thescrewtapedemos



Category: Electronic Dance Music RPF
Genre: M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:03:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6190576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thescrewtapedemos/pseuds/thescrewtapedemos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>or, a study in hotel rooms and managing your artist's block poorly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pour us a road (we'll both drink and drive)

**Author's Note:**

> title from night drive by jimmy eat world.  
> enjoy xoxo

Porter wakes up one day and realizes there are four pizza boxes in a haphazard pile at the foot of his bed.

When he staggers out of bed and into the bathroom he notices the mirror is filthy. He’d forgotten to clean it, maybe. There are toothpaste stains everywhere. He doesn’t remember the last time he’d noticed but it’d been a while. Eventually he looks away, turns to take a piss and shuffles down the hall into his living room.

There are more pizza boxes here. Beer cans too, old Chinese takeout containers. A clutter of trash he’d been building for… he thinks back and he doesn’t really remember the moment he’d stopped walking the refuse to the trash can.

He stares at it a while longer and notes absently that his stomach is churning and his heart is beating too fast. He doesn’t know why, can’t fathom through the fog of tiredness and disinterest in his brain, so he turns away to go make some coffee. It’ll help maybe. At least it’s something to do.

When his coffee’s done he fixes himself a cup, strong and sweet, and heads back into the living room.

His laptop’s open on the coffee table. There’s a word document open on screen, a few garbled lines of text. Sheaves of papers on the couch cushions, on the floor, nested around the laptop. Some of them have scribbled melodies on them and some of them have half-finished doodles. A few are balled up and a few look like they’d been balled up before and then carefully smoothed out again. He looks away sharply, takes a deep gulp of his coffee and barely winces when it burns his tongue. Everything feels numb. 

The coffee is gone eventually. He goes back and fills his mug again. This time he stands at the window and stares out of it for a long time.

It’s spring. Beautifully spring, a riot of green and purple and yellow. The sun is bright with mid-morning, the air looks clean. There are birds, flying in dizzying swoops across his window. He watches someone drive past in a tiny little convertible. She’s laughing, he notes idly, her hair blowing in the wind and mouth open with joy.

He turns away and dumps his coffee in the sink. There are dishes in it, old food crusted on them.

Stuffing all the pizza boxes and takeout containers in the trash takes a while and a fair amount of effort. The dishes he stares at for a while before throwing in the trash as well, followed by the piles of scribbled papers and beer cans. It’s a heavy load but he heaves it out to the complex’s dumpster eventually and tosses it in to the sound of breaking plates and ripping paper.

The sound makes him smile and it feels unfamiliar on his face.

His apartment is still dirty when he goes back inside. It smells of takeout and he throws open the windows and props open the door. More trash, all the littered food container’s he’d left in places that weren’t the living room, more dishes, more papers. When he gets to his room and the drifts of dirty laundry he stares at that for a very long while again and then stuffs it all into another garbage bag.

There’s no satisfying noise when he tosses that in the trash but when he climbs back up to his apartment again the feeling of his bare room with sunlit, dusty floors is cathartic anyways.

Eventually it’s afternoon and there’s nothing more to throw away but his laptop, sitting in the middle of his coffee table mockingly.

He shuts the lid and heads to his bedroom. There’s two hoodies and a couple clean, uninteresting shirts in the back of his closet, two pairs of jeans in the corner of his dresser with no stains on them. He throws them all into his backpack, stuffs a few pairs of underwear in after that and tops it off with a couple socks. Toothpaste goes in a side pocket, along with a toothbrush and a razor.

His wallet goes in his back pocket. His keys and cell phone in the front, and he narrowly remembers to stuff his charger into the sliver of space left in his backpack. His laptop he leaves where it is, forlorn on his coffee table.

The door locks behind him with a _clunk_.

* * *

“Something with great gas mileage and a low profile,” he tells the rental lady. She raises her eyebrows but hands him the keys and he smiles at her weakly before spinning and walking away.

His car is a shitty little blue Toyota with the requested gas mileage and pretty much nothing else. He runs a hand across the hood for a moment and then opens the driver’s side door.

It smells like febreeze. The upholstery is slightly worn but clean, and he fits alright in the seat. It starts with a functional purr and he spends a moment touching the dash, opening the console, unlatching the glove compartment and poking through the mess of papers. There’s nothing left behind by anyone else that’d driven it before him but he thinks he can feel an echo all the same. Some kind of intangible impression.

He sets his backpack in the passenger seat and pulls out his phone. For a while he contemplates calling someone, sending a mass text, something like that. It exhausts him just thinking about it.

 _be afk for a while personal things_ , he tweets eventually and then turns off his phone, tosses that in the footwell of the passenger side. Like it doesn’t even exist that way, like he can’t be reached, and he feels something lift from his shoulders.

He reverses out the rental agency and hits the highway going north.

* * *

The sun is going down in a brilliant orange-pink blaze. He turns off the freeway and doesn’t bother to note the name of the town he’s pulling into. Most of the stores are closed but there’s a little family-owned grocery store still blazing with cheerful light and when he shuffles in with his head down no one looks at him twice. He buys food at random, things he can microwave, things he doesn’t need to prepare at all.

The cashier smiles at him but doesn’t seem too bothered when he just nods back.

The motel he finds is so cheap he might even be able to pay in cash if he wanted. They don’t ask any questions which he’s almost surprised about. It feels like he’s running from something and it takes him a moment to remember that the things he’s fugitive from aren’t going to find him by way of a computer registry.

The receptionist hands him a key on a little plastic tab and he jingles it in his hand as he walks down the little sidewalk, past scuffed white doors with little chrome numbers. He’s in 17 and it’s almost right at the end.

The air smells like dust when he works the key into the stiff lock and cracks open the door. Dust and artificial flowers. It’s warm and evening light is streaming through the slats of the blinds, striping the far wall in bloody scarlet and shadow. Nothing stirs when he steps inside, just dust drifting when he heaves his backpack onto the bed.

It’s silent. There’s no television and he’s kind of happy about that. There’s a radio for some reason, an old one with antennas on the table in the corner. He turns it on and soft static starts to play, volume down low, something he vaguely recognizes as soft rock fighting through the distance in garbled strains.

He goes to the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror for a while.

Everything about his reflection is the same as before, when the mirror had been in his own toothpaste-stained bathroom. Greasy hair limp over one ear. Beaky nose and tired eyes. He squints at it for a while and then turns to take a piss.

He ignores the déjà vu.

The radio is still playing static and unintelligible music when he comes back out. The light has died a little, the scarlet evening diming to soft crimson-grey. There’s a microwave. He sticks a burrito in it and goes to turn on the bedside lamp before it gets so dark he barks his shins against the bedframe or something.

The light flickers for a moment when he turns it on but steadies eventually, a soft yellow glow.

The microwave dings and he turns the burrito over, restarts it. As he’s waiting he reaches for his pocket and there’s a moment of panic that breaks through the haze of nothing he’d been moving through for what feels like hours.

After a beat he remembers his phone, turned off and tossed in the footwell of his rental. Still there hopefully.

The microwave dings again and he pulls out the burrito, eats the greasy thing sitting at the little table in the corner with the radio. The solitude is sort of nice, he hazards in the privacy of his own head. The sun is all the way down now, cold silver moonlight beginning to gild the edges of the blinds. He finishes his disgusting burrito staring at the light shifting as people walk past. He can’t see anything but their shadows, an impression of size and posture before they’re gone again.

The light flickers again when he clicks it off and he idly wonders how long it’ll be until the motel burns down.

The bed sheets are thin and worn but the blanket is thick enough and he kicks off his jeans and yanks his shirt over his head. The linen is cool and he squirms around for a moment until it warms to his skin.

The radio is still going, the music fading out again. On the other side of the wall he hears a bed creak, someone squirming the same way Porter had. They settle quickly and Porter imagines to himself he can hear their breathing. It almost feels real and he lets himself believe it.

The moonlight is striping the far wall in grey and black and he looks at it until his eyelids are too heavy to keep open.

* * *

He wakes up early in the morning for no reason. The sun’s coming through the window in brilliant bars again and he lays in bed for a while, just watching the room.

He hadn’t seen the wallpaper last night. It’s pinstripe, faded green and light grey. When he reaches up and runs a hand over it the pattern is raised a little bit, a regular barcode his fingertips can’t read. It’s hypnotizing and he runs his fingernails down the grooves for a while, until he glances at the clock across the room and realizes he’d been lying in bed for almost half an hour.

On the other side of the wall the bed creaks as someone gets up. The floor cracks a little. He hears things moving, pipes gurgling, the door opening and then closing. Then silence.

Eventually he heaves himself up and digs a fresh shirt out of his backpack. It’s old, he notes idly, something he’s owned for years. He tugs it on over yesterday’s jeans and brushes his teeth in the bathroom without looking at his reflection.

Breakfast is a box of crackers when he slides behind the wheel of his car, after he’s turned in his key and made small talk with the new receptionist. He props it between his thighs and eats while he drives, turns on the highway and turns his radio on to a Spanish pop station so he won’t understand a word.

* * *

He stops a few hours later, in a little tourist overlook packed with cars.

There are crowds of families on the beach and they pay him no mind as he shuffles past, grocery bag of junk food in one hand and a liter of water in the other. He heads for the craggy dunes down the beach where fewer people have spread towels. They don’t pay him any more mind than anyone else when he settles down on his haunches to watch the ocean and poke through his bag for something he wants to eat.

He realizes half an hour later that he’d left his music behind at his apartment. He misses it acutely, suddenly, the structure of a song. He wants his keyboards, he wants his laptop and headphones. He presses his palms down into damp, cool sand and breathes through the ache in his chest until it starts to sink back into the tide of unfeeling he’s been swimming in for…

Fuck, it’s been weeks.

He reminds himself viciously what his keyboards had felt like recently, how they’d been biting back, how he hadn’t been able to do a single fucking thing. He reminds himself and scoops out fistfuls of sand as he does it, piles them up and then smooths them down mindlessly until the ache is all gone and the sun has passed the halfway mark of the sky.

His joints pop when he stands. No one pays any attention as he walks past.

* * *

The next motel is the same as the first, in a small town that feels like he’d done a big circle to arrive right back where he’d left. A metal key on a plastic tab and a long walk down a cracked, sun-baked sidewalk. Porter keeps his eyes on the ground and counts the cracks his toes tap against until he reaches his room.

The room’s number 14 this time. When he goes inside the design is different and it smells different but the déjà vu is there all the same.

Cinnamon spice instead of artificial flowers. A tiny, dented television instead of a radio. The bed on the opposite wall but the same turned down sheets, the same carpet, the same tiny coffee pot in the corner.

He heads to the bathroom and looks in the mirror and he’s the same, the same face and the same hair and the same tired stare he can’t meet for long.

He eats a banana watching a game show with the volume down low.

He goes to bed when the light is still dying outside. There’s no one on the other side of the wall this time, just empty silence. He reaches up and traces the wallpaper with a finger. It’s not stripes, something swirly like flowers or maybe paisley.

He presses his face into pillows that smell of industrial laundry detergent and drifts until sleep pulls him under.

* * *

The next drive takes him into emerald forests, sunlight filtering through trees. He thinks he’s probably somewhere in Oregon and had just missed the sign somehow. He passes the sign an hour later and shrugs to himself. It doesn’t matter.

He takes lunch by taking an unmarked exit road and driving a couple minutes out, pulling out on the shoulder and going to sit on the hood of his car.

The trees are beautiful and silent. There are bugs humming in the air in a way that accents the quiet, makes it a breathing thing sitting at Porter’s shoulder. Briefly he thinks he should go grab his phone, take a picture of this quiet little forest. A picture wouldn’t do enough, wouldn’t do it justice. The bigger, stronger desire to have someone there. To show this to someone.

He wonders if his phone is still where he’d thrown it three days ago. He hasn’t checked.

The thought follows him as he finishes his apple and granola bar, tucks his trash in the grocery bag and looks out at the woods one last time. That he could call someone. Should, probably. Check in and let everyone know he’s okay.

He slides into the driver’s seat. Tosses the trash bag into the back without looking and starts the engine.

* * *

The motel he finds is two stories this time and the room he gets is on the top floor, number 219.

He heads back to the car instead of up to his room, opens the passenger-side door and stares.

The floor is a litter of garbage, wrappers and discarded half-eaten food. It reminds him of his apartment suddenly and he looks away. The smell is the same, nested human and old food.

He finds his phone under a hamburger wrapper. It turns on when he thumbs the power button and instantly begins to buzz, loading text after text, missed call after missed call. A million voicemails, a thousand tweets and emails and notifications. He stuffs it into his pocket instead of dealing with them and slams his car door shut.

His phone continues to buzz as he climbs the stairs up to his room, as he unlocks the door to his room and tosses his bag on the bed. It feels like a routine already. There’s a television. A coffeemaker. Wallpaper in sober grey with thin crimson pinstripes.

He sits on the bed and pulls his phone out.

He’s gotten sixty four missed calls. Well over a hundred text messages. There are twitter direct messages, emails on multiple accounts. Voicemails, he doesn’t know how many but he’s sure quite a few. It’s exhausting just to look at and for a moment he’s tempted to just walk back out and throw his phone away into the night.

He doesn’t. Instead he ignores it all and flicks the notifications away one at a time until his phone stops buzzing at him angrily.

He stares at it some more.

The rectangles of light on the walls are orange, when he glances up at them. Soft evening light. He wonders vaguely where everyone is. It’s late in France. Not quite as late where his parents are in North Carolina.

He flicks open his contacts and scrolls for a moment.

The call connects almost immediately and Porter holds it to his ear gingerly. For some reason his stomach is churning. He doesn’t really understand it; he’s not feeling much of anything.

The call picks up and then Dillon’s frantic voice is on the line and Porter bites down on his lip viciously because…

He doesn’t know why.

“Porter?” Dillon is demanding. His voice sounds taut. Something difficult to understand.

“Hi,” Porter says quietly.

“Porter!” Dillon yells. It’s so loud Porter’s phone speakers cut out for a moment and he has to yank the phone away from his face, rub at his ear for a moment before gingerly bringing it closer again.

“Hey,” he repeats and Dillon erupts into a bout of swearing so loud Porter can’t make out half the words, just an endless stream of incoherent profanity. He waits and there’s something about Dillon’s tone that he can’t parse for a long time.

Dillon pauses to inhale and even through Porter’s abused phone speaker he hears the shake in it.

It occurs to him, slowly like a dawning sunrise as Dillon starts up again, that Dillon sounds _scared_. It occurs to him – really occurs, the heavy significance of it – that he hadn’t told anyone where he’d gone, or why. That even before he’d left he hadn’t answered a call or text in… a few days at least. That Dillon, despite his carefully honed image of not giving a fuck, had always cared so deeply.

He wonders distantly, as Dillon’s invective winds down into panting, how many of the voicemails, missed calls, and frantic text messages had been Dillon’s.

“I’m okay,” he says, and he’s expecting Dillon’s cursing to start again but instead there’s silence and then the soft sound of a shuddering inhale.

“Where are you?” Dillon asks quietly.

Porter doesn’t reply for a very long time, digs his fingers into soft blanket instead and watches dust eddying in the golden sunlight.

“Porter!” Dillon snaps and his voice sounds thick. Porter blinks.

“Not sure,” he says distantly and then when Dillon makes a wounded noise he realizes how it sounds. He shakes himself, smooths his hands out against the blankets. “Somewhere in Oregon, I didn’t look at the name of the town. I’m in a motel. I’m fine, Dillon.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Dillon hisses and his voice still sounds thick and muffled. Porter waits a while longer in silence, running the blanket between his fingers.

“I,” he says eventually, and Dillon cuts him off as neatly as if he’d been waiting for it.

“I’m coming to find you,” he says, and his tone is shaking, so much less certain than his words would imply.

Porter considers this distantly. It hadn’t been why he’d called, he doesn’t think. He hadn’t been _thinking_ when he’d called, hadn’t known why he’d called except that even in this spontaneous, unconventional road trip everything had started to weigh into a routine. Had started to weigh around his neck like an anchor dragging him down. He’d needed someone to talk to and his hand had chosen Dillon by instinct.

It usually does. Porter puts that thought away for a time that isn’t this.

“Okay,” he decides. Maybe Dillon’s what he needs to make everything around him stop feeling like walking through fog.

“I need you to tell me where you are,” Dillon says, and his voice has firmed up. He’s making plans and Porter’s distantly amused. There’s a part of him – and he doesn’t like it, it’s an ugly thought, it’s cruel and unkind – that knows if he wanted to he could hang up the phone right now and slip away and Dillon would never find him.

“I can head to Portland,” he says. “Meet you at the airport there.”

“Okay,” Dillon says, breathes out and then breathes in again. It sounds harsh through the speakers. “I’ll… I’ll text you with my itinerary, okay? There should be a flight right there, I’m in Vegas right now.”

“Okay,” Porter agrees easily. Vaguely he wonders if Dillon’s giving things up for him, if there are disappointed crowds in arenas right now that won’t ever know why Dillon disappeared with no warning. He should feel guilty he’s pretty sure but mostly he’s tired.

“Stay safe okay?” Dillon says at last, quiet.

“Yeah,” Porter says and hangs up. He wanted to say goodbye but couldn’t think of how, couldn’t make words come out that meant anything or sounded right in his head. Instead silence falls again, the washed out silence of a muted television and someone talking loudly on the other side of the wall.

Porter can’t tell if they’re talking to a cell phone or themselves or nothing at all.

* * *

The texts come through an hour or so later, when he’s curled up at the head of the bed with the blankets around his knees and something he doesn’t recognize playing on the muted television.

It’s a picture of an itinerary and then _BE THERE_ , large capitals.

 _ok_ , he texts back.

Dillon doesn’t reply.

* * *

The airport is busy and Porter shies away from it all. It’s too much, after days by himself in his apartment or car or hotel room. Too many people, too much noise. The sun is too bright and he hovers by the exit for security and tries to suppress the urge to pull his hood over his head.

He tries to ignore the security people glancing over at him suspiciously.

His heart is beating fast again and he doesn’t know why, doesn’t know why he’s having so much trouble keeping his breathing slow. Stuffing his hands in his hoodie pocket helps and he taps out a beat with his fingers. Something increasingly complicated, something that could almost build into a melody before he changes it again, something more upbeat, he taps his toe a little too as a stand in for bass and-

“Hey,” Dillon says.

Porter flinches before he can stop himself.

Dillon’s standing in front of him, hood up and sunglasses on like a total douche but still a face Porter couldn’t mistake. He looks rumpled, there’s a bag over his shoulder, and he’s holding out a hand halfway extended like he’d been trying to stop Porter from falling.

Porter stares at him mutely until his hand drops back to his side.

“I’m hungry,” Dillon says at last and reaches up to shove his sunglasses to the top of his head, knocking his hood back in the process. There are shadows under his eyes. His hair is greasy, Porter notes absently, his eyes are bloodshot and tired-looking and difficult to meet. It’s possible he hadn’t slept all night.

“Okay,” Porter says after a beat and jerks his head in the direction of outside, towards his car where he’d parked it. Dillon nods and starts past him and Porter reaches out without thinking, brushes a hand across the back of Dillon’s wrist.

Dillon makes a sound Porter can’t fathom and drops his bag, whirls and grabs Porter’s hand. Uses it to drag him forward into a desperate hug. It’s too tight, Dillon’s hands pressing viciously into his back, and for a moment he shoves back from it instinctively. It’s too much and for a split second he tries to fight it before it sinks in that Dillon’s here, he’s _here_ and hugging Porter and Porter…

Porter had been so _lonely_ and he didn’t even realize.

He throws his arms around Dillon and clings, digs his own fingernails into the back of Dillon’s hoodie and holds on as tight as he can. Distantly he’s pretty sure he’s shaking but Dillon doesn’t protest and so he doesn’t let go. Doesn’t let go for a long time, in fact. Until his breathing slows and his eyes stop aching like he’d been about to cry.

“So,” he says at last, when Dillon’s hold finally loosens and he steps away. His voice is shaky but not the choked-up mess he’d been scared of. “Food?”

“Yeah,” Dillon says and his eyes are just as bloodshot as before but maybe a little more glassy.

* * *

The drive is quiet. Porter had offered to turn off the radio, playing only static, and Dillon had shrugged so he’d just turned it down low and started driving in the direction the road out of Portland International had spit them out.

Dillon doesn’t say anything except to point out a Wendy’s they pass. Porter turns into the drive-through and orders for them both, a lot of food because suddenly he’s ravenously hungry. He parks in the parking lot and they both eat in silence.

The quiet is suffocating with someone else in it with him. He misses his solitude.

He finishes before Dillon does and stuffs his trash in the bag, mindless tidying up that Dillon watches quietly over his burger. It’s acutely awkward and his skin tingles with awareness of his eyes. Dillon still doesn’t say anything, finishes his burger in leisurely bites and then steals the bag full of trash to fit his own inside.

The bag drops back to the floor, among the trash. It occurs to Porter that his car is filthy and a distant pang of embarrassment goes through him before he shakes it away.

“You disappeared,” Dillon says at last. His voice sounds awful in the quiet. “I knew you were busy but you just… stopped answering my calls, and then when I asked Hugo or your parents they hadn’t heard from you either. No one has, Porter. And then you tweet some fucking… some random _bullshit?”_

His hand slams down on the console with a sharp thump and Porter flinches.

“C’mon,” Dillon says quietly after a beat of silence has passed. His tone is pleading. “I’m trying to understand.”

Porter doesn’t look up. Instead he reaches over and turns the key. The engine comes to life with the same purr and Dillon doesn’t say anything or reach over to stop him so he puts his foot on the pedal, his hands on the wheel, and reverses out of the parking lot.

The drive to the edge of town is silence underlined by Dillon’s harsh breathing. He doesn’t say a word when Porter pulls into a motel and kills the engine. When Porter climbs out Dillon follows him quietly, shadows him into the lobby and hangs back for the quiet conversation with a sleepy-eyed receptionist and the subsequent key handed over. He still doesn’t say anything as Porter walks down the sun-blasted sidewalk to number 8 and turns the key in the stiff lock.

The room smells of artificial flowers. He breathes it in and throws his backpack on the bed. A queen. He hadn’t really been thinking, hadn’t asked for two beds.

He shrugs it away and turns.

Dillon’s standing in the doorway, bag over his shoulder and sunglasses propped up on his hair. He’s staring at Porter steadily and he’s haloed in light from the door and Porter wants to touch him again, be touched, to not feel so displaced in his own skin. He can’t meet Dillon’s eyes.

“C’mon in,” he says quietly. Dillon nods and steps past the doorframe, nudging the door shut with a hip and setting his backpack heavily on the floor.

“We need to _talk_ ,” Dillon reminds him and Porter nods without looking at him, shuffles over to climb onto the bed, crawl back to sit against the headboard.

The mattress bounces when Dillon follows him, crawls up to join him.

Porter leans against him without thinking. For a moment Dillon hesitates and then relaxes a little bit, body curving towards Porter to make room.

“Talking,” Porter mumbles and turns a little more towards Dillon.

Dillon’s arm comes around him almost casually, cradling him in a way that could maybe pass for an accident if he hadn’t been quite so smooth about it. Porter turns into it anyway, follows the sweep of Dillon’s arm and carries through to throw a leg over him. Suddenly Dillon’s under him, blinking up at him with genuine surprise. His lap is warm between Porter’s spread thighs and Porter’s not hard yet but he thinks if he tried he could be.

This hadn’t been what he wanted but it’s almost like something he thinks he _could_ want and he’ll take anything.

The noise Dillon makes when Porter drops forward, props his elbows over Dillon’s shoulders and grinds down is soft, astonished. The first thing to make Porter’s dick twitch all night. He does it again and Dillon’s hands tighten against his hips. For a moment he thinks it’s encouragement and his cock twitches again.

Then Dillon’s lifting him away, rough and something that barely escapes being a frantic shove. Dillon scrambles back away from him, nearly slamming back against the headboard. Porter’s left on his knees in the middle of the bed, blinking and breathing hard.

Dillon stares at him and Porter can feel the moment something hard and cold and bitter cracks open in his chest. It hurts brilliantly and he breathes in against it. It’s like saline in his chest, like cold salt water.

“You disappeared,” Dillon says and he’s staring at Porter like Porter’s a stranger and that hurts the worst of anything he’s felt in weeks and months. Dillon’s looking like he doesn’t recognize a thing about him, and like he isn’t sure he likes what he _does_ see.

Porter hauls in a breath and it feels tear-stained, like he’s been crying already instead of being just about to.

“You can’t,” Dillon says and his face crumples. “You can’t fucking… _use_ me, Porter. I’m here because I care but that’s not fair, okay, it’s not.”

“I didn’t-,” Porter begins but it’s a lie and it burns his tongue on the way out because he had been. He had been using Dillon and he hates himself for it. He cuts himself in and hauls in another thick breath. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Just _talk_ to me,” Dillon says and his tone is pleading and his eyes are searching Porter’s face. Porter forces himself to meet Dillon’s gaze, to hold still under that impossible weight.

“I,” he begins and the words crash free like a car with severed brake lines. “I can’t make music.”

Dillon’s eyebrows furrow and he searches Porter’s face again.

“I’ve been trying,” Porter confesses into the quiet. “I tried… fuck, Dillon, I tried everything and… Nothing sounds right, I can’t make it click, it’s been months! And nothing’s going right!”

“Porter,” Dillon says slowly and a nasty giggle bubbles up in Porter’s chest.

“I thought maybe being alone but I just slowed down, and then this road trip, but it feels _worse_ ,” he says. The words slur a little bit, a garbled tangle of loathing and self-pity welling up from the cracked-open thing in his chest. “And I’m scared, okay, I’m scared because _I can’t make music_!”

He cuts himself off, slams his mouth shut and takes in a shuddering breath through his nose. His eyelashes feel humiliatingly wet when he blinks so he keeps his eyes closed and prays the tears don’t overflow.

Dillon’s hand lands on the back of his head and pulls him forward.

He fights for a moment; he doesn’t deserve this now, so soon after what he’d done. Dillon doesn’t let go though and Porter does want this, wants someone to hold him and tell him it’ll be okay, so he lets go. Tips forward and tucks his face into Dillon’s shoulder, bunching his hands into his shirt and clinging as tight as he dares.

Dillon’s hand smooths his hair, a gentle stroking motion. Slowly Porter’s tension dies and he feels his body relax. Suddenly he’s exhausted, used-up and burned-out so thoroughly he can barely fathom moving.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles into Dillon’s body. “So fucking sorry, I’m sorry.”

“You’re a fucking idiot,” Dillon murmurs in his ear.

Porter huffs out a protesting noise but it’s muffled where he’s pressed his face into Dillon’s warm bulk. He wants to be angry but everything seems very far away and Dillon’s right anyways. Instead he nods and nuzzles in thoughtlessly. He doesn’t want to move ever again.

“We’re talking about this later,” Dillon threatens and then laughs when all that Porter can summon in response is a muffled noise.

Porter feels Dillon lifting him a little and he drops off to sleep in the beat between being picked up and set back down.

* * *

Hours later he slips back into awareness so softly that for a while he thinks the warm hand stroking down his spine is still a dream.

There’s something under his ear that gurgles and he slowly becomes aware his head is pillowed on bare skin. Someone’s chest, he decides dimly and briefly considers moving but can’t bring himself to. It feels too nice. Instead he nuzzles in with a quiet noise of contentment.

“Hey,” someone says over his head and he frowns because he recognizes the voice.

He’d been sleeping on Dillon, he realizes and his eyes blink open.

Late afternoon sunlight is streaking the far wall in fiery streaks, glorious and rosy. Dillon’s naked chest is under his cheek, a warm hand against his back still. He waits for the numbness to set in, the ugly novocain feeling he’s been running from for weeks and weeks, waits for it to creep in and make everything grey.

It doesn’t come. The colors are bright. He can breathe. His chest hurts a little bit, his arm is numb, Dillon is here.

“Good morning,” Dillon says, tone amused, chest rumbling against Porter ear. Porter breathes in, rabbit-quick. When he sits up a little bit Dillon shifts with him, lets him spread out from the tight curl he’d been sleeping in but doesn’t let him get far. He ends up spooned against Dillon’s side.

It’s warm. His cheek is pressed into Dillon’s shoulder.

Porter takes in a breath because he wants to say something but nothing comes. There aren’t any words. He lets it out again in a rush.

Dillon’s head turns and Porter tilts up to look and-

Suddenly they’re breathing the same air. Suddenly their mouths are so close that if Porter tipped up just a little more they would be kissing. He can feel Dillon’s breath on his cheek, a warm brush sending a shiver through him.

Dimly he realizes his pants are tightening but that’s secondary to the overwhelming desire to press forward those last few millimeters. To close the distance and make it real.

Dillon’s eyes are searching his, he realizes and he smiles up at him sleepily.

He thinks Dillon’s worried this is more of before, more of Porter running from himself and using Dillon as an escape. It doesn’t feel that way, though. It feels warm and contented and just an edge of nervous excitement. He’s pretty sure Dillon would kiss him back but there’s knowing and then there’s _knowing_ and he wants this very, very badly.

He makes a soft sound and nudges Dillon’s nose with his own. Just a little bump to say hello.

Dillon echoes him, a soft pleased noise and then he’s sliding down and their lips are meeting.

The kiss is warm, like summer sheet lightning running down every one of Porter’s nerves. Quickening excitement. Dillon makes another noise, a soft sigh, and his mouth opens with a soft wet flicker of tongue.

“Okay?” Dillon pulls back to say, words buzzing against Porter’s lips because he hadn’t gone far. It makes his breath catch and he just nods, presses up again to connect their mouths. When Dillon’s hands settle on his hips he notices dimly he’s just wearing boxers, Dillon’s broad hands fitting around his hips and pressing in with electric pressure.

Dillon must have taken off his jeans for him when he’d fallen asleep, he realizes, and then dismisses the thought in favor of biting down ever so gently on Dillon’s lower lip. When he does Dillon moans, a soft little noise that makes Porter’s cock twitch. Instinctively he pushes his hips down, grinds his erection against Dillon’s thigh.

“This is alright?” Dillon pulls away breathlessly to ask. Porter grinds down again and Dillon groans, his hands tightening on Porter’s hips. Briefly they’re lifting and Porter’s being hauled up, legs spreading automatically to straddle Dillon’s thighs. Suddenly he’s sitting in Dillon’s lap instead of spooned into his side and he can feel Dillon’s erection, hot and hard.

He feels shivery and exposed for a moment, nearly naked, legs spread and erection tenting his boxers so obviously. Evening sunlight through the window is striping warm bars across his skin. The room is quiet except for the sigh of their breathing, until Dillon reaches out and lays a hand over his side and the rasp of skin on skin replaces it.

Porter can’t help the little noise and when he finally dares to look up and meet Dillon’s eyes the expression there makes his breath catch again, makes something fierce and soft spread in his chest.

Dillon looks stunned. Awed. It’s almost familiar the way he’s looking like Porter’s something he’s never seen before, but different this time. Like he’s something to worship, like he’s something Dillon can barely believe he’s allowed to touch.

Porter rolls his hips up, a hesitant motion. It’s almost nothing in terms of friction but Dillon’s free hand is suddenly gripping his hip, fingers pressing so tight into his skin. His breathing is catching and his eyes are wide and dark and still fixed so securely to Porter. He rolls his hips again, more smoothly, loves the way Dillon’s hands are so tight on him.

“Fuck,” Dillon breathes. Then his hand is in Porter’s hair, gentle pressure pulling him down and down, chest to chest, mouth to mouth. Wet kisses pressed back and forth, and then Dillon’s hands are on him again and helping his hips roll.

It feels so good, the filthy-slow and lazy grind of friction against his erection. For a long time he’s content with that, with the pressure on his cock and Dillon’s teeth pressing bites to his lip that flirt with the edge of too rough. He could come like this, he feels it gathering liquid and golden in the tightness in the bit of his stomach.

Dillon pulls away from the kisses for a moment. His mouth is red, Porter notes dizzily. His cheeks are flushed and his breathing is rapid and his eyes are so dark, so intent and reverential on his face.

“Here,” he says. His hands land at Porter’s waistband, tug at his boxer pointedly. Porter arches his back and lifts his hips to help him push them off, lifting himself up for a moment to shove them off entirely and kick them away. Dillon’s briefs follow, kicked off somewhere into the mess of sheets. Porter doesn’t care, can’t care when he’s settling back into place over Dillon and the sheer glory of bare skin to bare skin is making his head spin.

It feels so good. He can barely breathe with how good it is. Dillon’s dick is curved and red and gorgeous, leaking precum in fat, slick drops. When Porter settles into place their cocks slide together and the noise Dillon makes when he does is wounded. Porter would almost think he was in pain except when that Dillon’s hands are tight on his thighs, his hips rolling up to meet Porter’s hesitant thrusts.

He drops forward again, spreads his legs as wide as they’ll go and props his elbows above Dillon’s shoulders again. Like this he has so much leverage, so much force behind each slow grind. When Dillon hisses out a moan Porter leans forward the last inch, presses their mouths together and swallows the sound.

They’re so close, what feels like miles of skin on skin, impossible friction except the slick slide of precum. Dillon’s hands are everywhere on him, sliding down his back and pressing blunt fingers into the bumps of his ribcage.

Finally he breaks away to breathe, harsh panting. Dillon strains up against him and Porter can feel his cock twitching.

“You feel so good,” he says without thinking. His voice is hoarse and cracked and the sound Dillon makes back is sweet and pleased. His hands tighten on Porter’s hips and drag him into another grind.

Porter carefully frees an arm and reaches down between them, arching his back to slip a hand into the bare space between them and wrap a hand around their cocks.

Dillon cries out and bucks up, fucking his dick up into Porter’s hand. It’s too much friction, too sudden, and Porter has to bite down on a scream when Dillon just chokes out another moan and does it again. He has to fight to keep his eyes from rolling back, at the too much pleasure, at Dillon’s suddenly desperate noises, the slick precum he can feel coating the inside of his fist.

He leans forward and catches Dillon’s mouth again, clumsy and uncoordinated and not really a kiss. Dillon moans into his mouth and he whines back because orgasm is cresting inside him, tight and close and lightning behind his eyelids.

Dillon’s head falls back, his back arches, and then come is hitting Porter’s stomach, spattering hot and wet over his fingers. Suddenly his own cock is sliding slick and easy in his fist and he cries out, bucks wildly. It feels so fucking good, so good, and he comes with Dillon’s panting breathing against his shoulder. With Dillon’s hands on him so tight it almost hurts and still feels so good.

He comes back to the slick feeling of come as Dillon eases him back down against his chest.

It’s not a great feeling but he suffers through it because even through the afterglow haze he still loves Dillon’s hands on him. Loves the contact and the warmth.

“Jesus,” Dillon breathes after a moment. Porter huffs out a surprised laugh.

“Sure,” he agrees, still kind of breathless. He feels loose-limbed and easy with orgasm.

Dillon nudges him in the side with the heel of a hand and Porter lifts his head from where he’d propped it against Dillon’s collar bone to squint at him.

“You should come back with me,” Dillon says quietly. “You don’t have to, you know. Worry about anything.”

Don’t have to worry about the music, Porter fills in. It’s an unpleasant pull in his pit of his stomach, the anxiety blooming once again. He turns his head back into Dillon’s chest and Dillon’s arms wrap around him again, fierce and tight. It feels good. It feels so good and Porter’s abjectly grateful.

“Just come back,” Dillon says. “Don’t be alone. The music will happen but you can’t disappear again okay?”

Porter spends a very long moment knowing that if he walks away now – and he could, he knows he could, Dillon wouldn’t force him to stay if he truly tried to leave – he’ll be breaking something. Something important. Whatever bright, new thing this is with Dillon won’t survive it.

He nods eventually. Dillon breathes out, a sigh heavy with relief, and Porter realizes he hadn’t been breathing this whole time.

“Okay, cool,” Dillon says and then shifts a little bit, uncomfortably. Come squishes between them with a filthy noise. “So can we uh… shower?”

Porter laughs so hard he can’t breathe.


End file.
